Planes overhead in BS31
Bath and North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and City of Bristol, Bristol. All 687 of its postcodes measured, January to August 2026.
From Bristol
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Bristol flies, and that decides how many pass over BS31. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (54% of days): up to 105 a day; of its 687 postcodes, 3 at 100+, 172 at 10 to 99, 2 on an edge, 510 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (21% of days): up to 106 a day; of its 687 postcodes, 1 at 100+, 686 at 10 to 99
- On a day it flies east (25% of days): up to 85 a day; of its 687 postcodes, 621 at 10 to 99, 66 under 10
The table counts the postcodes of each sector by how many planes pass over them a day: 100 or more, 10 to 99, or under 10.
| Sector | Flying west54% of days | Both ways21% of days | Flying east25% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS31 1275 postcodes | 40 at 10 to 99235 under 10 | 275 at 10 to 99 | 275 at 10 to 99 |
| BS31 2289 postcodes | 3 at 100+14 at 10 to 992 on an edge270 under 10 | 1 at 100+288 at 10 to 99 | 282 at 10 to 997 under 10 |
| BS31 3118 postcodes | 118 at 10 to 99 | 118 at 10 to 99 | 59 at 10 to 9959 under 10 |
| BS31 95 postcodes | 5 under 10 | 5 at 10 to 99 | 5 at 10 to 99 |
On an edge: the postcode is on the edge of a flight path, where a few metres decide whether a plane counts as overhead, and the fewest and the most within 100 m of it fall in different bands.
1 of its postcodes have a position ONS estimates, so their figures may be for a spot a few hundred metres away.
What counts as overhead
Overhead means more than halfway up the sky (48.5 degrees or more) and below 7,000 ft, the CAA's definition of an overflight (CAP 1498). A day counts as one way when 80% of its flights used that way.
Near BS31
BS30 BS14 BS15 BS4 BS5 BS16 BA2 BA1
The councils
- Bath and North East Somerset: noise and liveability score
- South Gloucestershire: noise and liveability score
- City of Bristol: noise and liveability score
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Bristol. Flight tracks: adsb.lol (ODbL 1.0); Weather at each airport: Iowa Environmental Mesonet; Ground heights: Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right; Postcode positions: ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (OGL). Licence: Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0.